December Wind
by OrangeRIES
Summary: Tezuka meets Fuji. He knows that Fuji is different and that beyond the closed smiling lid are eyes that are not deviod of colour.
1. Chapter 1

**December Wind**

_Fuji swept into his life like a flight of brisk December wind, hardly distinct but deeply heartrending. He never knew that it would have mattered, be it then or any day later that Fuji's existence had broken his slow steady inertia. That the light tousle through him had changed the peace- breaking inside, a slow trembling war. _

_A war that mattered nothing to Tezuka._

_A war that mattered everything to Tezuka_.

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Tezuka knew he knew nothing of the boy who had stepped in. His hidden eyes matched with tumbling bleached bangs. Seeing him in the front of the class, Tezuka felt that the boy's smile properly matched that of the poster down by the mall, the one that read, " we provide the best". He belonged there, the boy, beyond the comfort of reality inside that world of happy smiles. That was what Tezuka thought then- of course.

His friends informed him; perhaps one time too many, that the boy was called Fuji Syuusuke. Their enthusiasm for the new boy was hardly concealed; Tezuka wondered if it was due to Fuji's aura, it was not the normal, bland ones. It was special, like honey laced instant tea, the kind that not many drank but everyone loved. But that was one thing queer; another was perhaps his flighty, dreaming eyes that were hidden behind half- closed lids. Everyone wanted to know its colour but probing only made Fuji veil it behind the smile. No more did anyone try to make him tell, no more did anyone venture-

-Except maybe Kikumaru Eiji.

From Tezuka's point of view, their personalities vastly contrast; Kikumaru was the overly hyper sort, Fuji perhaps more serene. Tezuka felt the combination was beyond the explanation of words, so he never bothered trying to do so.

It was Wednesday a January evening and it was then he met with Kikumaru and Fuji on his way home.

The cherry blossoms were just about blooming and falling, pattering down the school's paths.

Tezuka was staring at the pink petals as they rained down onto him when a hand wrapped around his stiffened neck.

" Tezuka!" Kikumaru piped, pulling Tezuka to a side, " what were you staring at?"

"Nothing" he replied silently wishing to be alone.

" Were you dreaming?" Kikumaru continued.

"No"

A gentle brush of petals on his face.

" Of girls in short skirts perhaps?" The red head laughed, staring at a silhouette of the female species.

" Hardly."

" Really? Me too, I think they'd look great in short skirts." The red head muttered then drifted off as his brain drew a close to everything else.

Tezuka knew that he should not bother himself with things like that. Turning away he was just about to head home when he noticed, at the corner of his eye, the boy they all named Fuji.

He was smiling, that same distant smile.

" Pardon him." Fuji said, like the two words alone could explain the world of mysteries in the simplest of form.

Tezuka stood there looking at the other's eyes; he tried to see behind the lids.

Perhaps if Fuji were no longer smiling, Tezuka would catch a glimpse of its colour.

But 'perhaps' was never something Tezuka ventured into, he like things that he was confident of achieving, not an object that hung in a misty haze of deception.

" Hn," was all Tezuka said as he turned away to face the school gates.

And it was then he felt the contrast between Fuji and Kikumaru was more than just beyond explanation. It was vocally unheard of.

As he stared at the ceiling from his bed that night, he wondered how long more it took, before he could turn away from the cold January wind and sleep a deep dreamless sleep that lacked a pair of half closed smiling eyes that would open but be devoid of colours.

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Tezuka was in the Seigaku Tennis Team. He was the captain, something he held dear to. Tennis was after all he had in the world that encompasses high expectations of him. Being the only child of a traditional family, he was meant to be everything that his parents had hoped. And tennis was the only thing he could do to shun the eyes of everyone else. In the courts he could naturally be himself, where Tezuka meets Tezuka in the purest of form. That was of course, until that afternoon, where he stepped into the courts and his eyes meet, a pair of distant smiling ones.

When Fuji decided, simply, that he would join the tennis club.

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" He is joining?" Oishi asked, furrowing his brows in contemplation.

" Yup! He decided this morning, on the way to school." Kikumaru grinned flinging an arm around Fuji's shoulders ruffling his brown locks.

Tezuka glanced at Fuji's pale face, thin arms and small built and wondered if he would fall under the weight of the racket alone.

" Isn't it a bit sudden?" Oishi asked before slowly continuing, "after all, we are already in our third year."

" Fuji thinks he'll do fine." Kikumaru replied before pulling Fuji to the ends of the courts to meet the other players.

Half in stride, Kikumaru stopped, just momentarily, before hastily turning around to face both Tezuka and Oishi. He grinned then pouted a little childish sulk.

" Besides Ryusaki- sensei has agreed to this so even Tezuka can't do anything about it." He shouted before continuing his strides towards the rest of the team.

The chatter from the other end could have drowned all noise but Tezuka noticed Oishi sighing as he picked up a stray tennis ball from the floor.

"I don't know what to say Tezuka." Throwing the ball, he sent it across the net in a swift swing.

Tezuka returned it with an easy backhand.

" Then don't."

Chuckling, Oishi took the ball before it hit the floor applying force to the shot.

" Cold as ever huh?" he muttered, it was rhetorical question; he didn't bother waiting for a reply. " Doesn't it bother you, that Ryusaki- Sensei sent a newcomer into the club like that?"

" Hardly." The reply was short like the time the ball took to leave Tezuka's racket.

The chatter on the other end resumed after a minute of brief introduction, and Tezuka stole a glance at the honey haired boy. Oishi turned to take a glimpse just as Tezuka did.

" Maybe he is really amazing in tennis." Oishi frowned as if doubting what he just mentioned.

Taking the opportunity whereby Oishi was hardly paying attention to his moves he ended the game with a smash.

" Maybe," was Tezuka's reply as he walked to the benches, but as he did so, he could hardly deny the tiny doubt that lingered at the tip of lips.

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On the way home that day, Tezuka noticed a certain honey haired boy at the bus stop. He was contemplating on whether he should make himself noticed when he decided otherwise as he saw the boy stand to board the bus.

Tezuka simply waited for the next.

Alighting at his stop, his eyes catch, again, the same lean figure squatting by a store window. That was perhaps due to pure coincidence but it was curiosity that led Tezuka to stand behind a tree and watch. The boy was staring at a roll of grip tape.

Tezuka wondered if Fuji had wanted some for his new tennis racket.

But the boy simply stood and walked away, towards the endless rows of shops and city lights. Tezuka did not know why, but he followed, trailing just a few strides behind. He followed the boy as he glanced into shops, occasionally staring longer than usual. The things the other looked at were random, sometimes a picture of a meat bun, other times an expensive shirt from a branded store. From what Tezuka saw, there no connection of the things that boy was interested in. They were just about anything and everything else.

The shortest, however, was his gaze on a tennis racket from a poster. It was brief, but Tezuka felt then, that just for that split second, Fuji's smile had dropped, revealing a slight glimpse of his eyes before it was hastily shut back behind his smiling lids.

It was, however, still too fast for Tezuka to catch its colour. That was disappointment in its own way.

Tezuka followed Fuji till he reached a small stand at the side of a street. The boy bought two meat buns from the vendor and took a seat at the railing between the road and the streets. He ate heartedly and Tezuka wondered if the boy ate alone everyday, under the darkness of the starless skies.

He watched from behind a lamppost as Fuji munched on the buns, the smile still intact, like adhesive. Tezuka felt that if the smile meant just politeness and not happiness, it would be quite a chore to keep it on daily. So maybe, just maybe, Fuji was genuinely jovial just about every second. Only, the more Tezuka thought about it, the more bizarre it became and the thought was hastily chucked into the ' doesn't make sense' portion of his brain.

Finishing the last of his meal, the boy stood up, continuing his journey of the evening. But this time he walked, not the main streets, but the dark alleys.

Tezuka has this thing about dark, dangerous alleys. For one, he never liked them, they stank of muck and the air felt clammy on his skin. Another reason was perhaps the foreboding silence that seems to echo every footstep and breath of air. He did not like that empty feeling of the resounding quietude.

As Tezuka trailed behind Fuji in hope that the boy might decide to leave the darkness between the clamped spaces, he wandered deeper and deeper through mazes of bends and turns. Then the boy stopped, just inches before a small dusty shop window. Fuji paused, and with a slow flick of his hair, he pushed open the old wooden door. The small droning creak resounded in the silence, so softly creeping up Tezuka's spine. And it was then, when Tezuka turned and briskly walked away.

Never once did Tezuka turn back to look at the dusty shop window or search for that lean figure. It was the overwhelming urge to get out that motivated him to find his way through the maze. He simply just stumbled and ran at some point of time with the streetlights in mind. When he had finally done so, he headed for home, and went straight to bed without saying a word to anyone.

And perhaps, asking himself that night as he stared at the lonely ceiling. Tezuka would have thought that it was the alley and shop window that scared him, but it was hardly that. As when Fuji flicked his hair for that one swift movement, Tezuka had caught the boy's eyes -

-And they were of a terrifying cerulean blue.

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Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis is not mine.

i have no idea to why i am submiting something like this, I think i act on impulse so I am very sorry. BUT ANYWAYS, i hoped you liked it and would post some comments.

My english is not perfect cause i am lousy in my languages, i'm better in things that require no thinking like watching the TV so pardon my spelling. Thanks for reading and have a good day with sweet merry nightmares.


	2. Chapter 2

Tezuka hardly spoke to Fuji. For one, he felt that there was nothing they could converse about, Tezuka's interests were queer and he wasn't sure if Fuji shared them. Another was perhaps the deep nagging feeling that told him to stay away. Despite being classmates, Tezuka could not see himself ever being close friends with Fuji. It was true they respected each other, and were hardly enemies- but it stopped at that. Nobody crossed the thin line between respect and friendship; nobody tried.

School after the incident was hardly any different. They met only certain times a day, and their speech consisted of a simple " hi" or "good morning" that barely lasted a few seconds. Tezuka knew however, that something was different, for he felt towards Fuji a foreboding sense of animosity. That hostility, Tezuka knew, had something to do with the eyes he saw. Tezuka feared those eyes for a reason that he could hardly conjure. A closer look would perhaps clear all his lingering doubts, but he was happy the way it stayed- hidden behind those lids.

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It was a Friday afternoon when summer was approaching. Soon the cherry blossoms would cease to fall on the streets and the heat would overwhelm them.

It was that afternoon, when Tezuka met Fuji in the toilet and spoke to him. And it was that once, when their speech, surprisingly, held longer than a breath of a second.

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" Fancy meeting you here." The sudden, softness of Fuji's voice made Tezuka jump in alarm.

Tezuka turned around, almost briefly, but seeing the smiling eyes made him wish he hadn't done so. He didn't know why, his logic had failed to supply the reasons to his hostility.

So he simply gave a small nod and left that as it was, hoping that the other would leave- like he always did.

But Fuji did not budge, he probably never intended on going away.

" Do you think it'll rain today?" The boy asked and Tezuka felt then, that the questions were truly random.

"It would if it should," was his reply as he went to the sink and washed his face.

The silence resumed in the most awkward of forms and Tezuka could feel his muscles contracting and the tiny drops of sweat at his neck.

He tried though, a couple to times, to catch a glimpse of the other boy, and stopped immediately when he saw the intensity of those smiling eyes on his back.

Fuji was staring at him, almost weirdly.

" Was trying to find you the whole day..." Fuji spoke, and Tezuka watched his lips from the reflection of the mirror. " …Couldn't seem to get you."

Tezuka looked at the lightly tousled hair, the pale skin and Fuji's sickeningly pasted smile. The sense of dread filled him once more and it was painfully suffocating.

" What for?" Tezuka asked, turning around to face the other.

" Wanted to ask you a question." Hesitantly, Fuji spoke, carefully twirling the words at the edge of his tongue.

Tezuka watched the other carefully, furrowing his brows in contemplation.

" What question?"

" It seemed important then." Fuji said, shuffling his feet on the ceramic tiled floor.

"What question?"

It was in the intensity of the stares and quietude that the lunch bell rang. And as Fuji looked up into the ceiling, he seemed, to Tezuka, like he was pondering over something that he failed to grasp. But when he glanced back at Tezuka, the impression was gone.

" It seemed important then," Fuji answered, slowly widening his smile " but not so much now."

Then Fuji left, without another word, his hair dancing in the autumn wind.

And as Tezuka watched his diminishing figure, he caught, through the window, a stray petal descending. The petal seemed lonely for a moment, but it soon vanished. For walking home that evening, he glanced up, the sun was shining, the petals were gone and summer was arriving.

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The summer heat was unbearable; members took longer water breaks then usual, their playing was sloppier and the tennis club stank mostly of sweat and fermenting shoes. But nevertheless, Tezuka made sure they did well. The championships were arriving and he knew that their rivals could not be looked down upon.

The regulars were doing the best they could despite not being in form, even though they played satisfactory Tezuka was no contented - Tezuka was a perfectionist.

But perfectionist as he was, there was something he could not change. And that was the fact that Fuji did not once participate in Tennis practice. He simply sat by a corner and watched. Tezuka once asked Ryusaki- Sensei why it was so, but she simply brushed it off with a "let him be", and Tezuka left that as that; he never again probed.

The regulars asked him occasionally and Tezuka could hardly find a way to clear the doubts. So he simply mentioned that it was the Sensei's instructions. At first they were wary, but soon, knowing that there wasn't much they could do to change it, they stopped questioning. And Fuji's antics were forgotten and taken as familiarity.

The speech between them grew from before. They spoke more with each other, talked more to each other but one thing remained the same. Tezuka still knew nothing about Fuji and the line remained unbridged; nobody made an effort to do otherwise.

Till perhaps that night, a surprisingly cold evening, did the line waver, and unknowingly shatters into thousands of tiny fragments.

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It was already past evening, when Tezuka finally got out of school. He had met with a teacher and thus walking home then, there was nobody but himself. He had taken the same bus and had alighted at the same stop but perhaps due to the darkness of the skies, he felt, that the streets he walked, seemed less then comfort; they felt foreign to him.

The city lights illuminated the cold walls of the shop houses and the tired faces of the people. Tezuka glanced occasionally at a random man and tried his best to figure out where he was headed. It was a game his mother had taught him; when feeling lost, try to imagine a stranger's life and perhaps it will all turn comfort to him. He stared at the man; he had short black hair and a loose tie. The coat he was wearing seemed to contrast the bright tie he had. The tie was yellow with ladybugs scattered around and he was wearing a ring at his fourth finger.

Tezuka came to the hasty conclusion that the man was married with a child and thought no more about it. The game, Tezuka never enjoyed, so at some point of time he drifted off to stare through windows, no more trying to breed familiarity out of nothing. He watched, through the windows, the little happenings in the shops. A mother and her child, a few teenagers staring at a t-shirt and just about everything he could catch.

But as he walked on and stared into a random pub that night, he noticed, amidst the hazy cigar smoke and dry laughing faces, a familiar boy with the smile.

He did not know why, but as he stared at the pair of smiling eyes, something took him by impulse.

Walking past the door into the carven of the musty bar at that instant, it never once crossed his mind - on why, he, Tezuka Kunimitsu, strode into something forbidden and broke the law.

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He weaved past the heavy smoke and the smell of alcohol with faint distaste. It was difficult to conjure a reason to why Fuji was here. His passing of the drunken men and the faint smell of cheap perfume had made guessing even harder. The sleazy atmosphere was something that left an acrid taste of disdain on his tongue. The dry laughter that echoed in the dimness was faked and forced, so much so Tezuka had to stop himself from comparing them with Fuji. Tezuka saw that Fuji blended in almost perfectly with that laughter but there was one thing he also realized that made Fuji stand out and that was his honey coloured hair in the darkness of the dim overhanging lights.

Tezuka grabbed Fuji's arm at first sight, only to be met with violent objections.

Fuji flinched away immediately with contact. At first the boy did not once glance at him but after another try to grab his arm, the boy turned and stared at Tezuka. He was shocked at first, Tezuka could see, but after a while the faint surprise on his face turned to a small grin at the tip of his lips. Fuji dragged a bottle of beer from the table and seemingly flung himself to Tezuka. Staring at the light headed boy, Tezuka took his third chance and held on the Fuji's wrist. This time Fuji did not resist.

Tezuka pulled the other away, leading him out through the same way he came by. The crowd gave hurling protests at them as Tezuka tried to force his way through. Only when they were out did the crowd settle back to the same routine of the night. The dry laughter and the echoing chatter.

Tezuka brought Fuji to a corner of an alley and let him sit by the walls. Carefully he watched the other.

"Kaishi" was all Fuji was repeating, in different tones, sometimes the word sounded silly, at others, affectionate. Tezuka wondered whose name he was calling.

Then Fuji stopped for a second; he rested his head briskly onto the wall and stared up at Tezuka smiling.

"Te-zu-ka" he said, laughing between breaths, " Kai-shi is wai-ting fer me."

Fuji laughed then he tried to stand, but he fell trying. He tried again but failed the second time too.

Watching him, Tezuka felt anger rising up his throat, an unexplained fury swept through him like an unknowing fleet of waves. Bending down he gripped onto Fuji's shirt and brought his face close to the other.

" Who is this Kaishi? Someone you are selling your body to, despite being underage?" he almost shouted, but tried not to by clenching his teeth and his fist tightly into balls.

Fuji was astounded at first but soon he was down laughing again, having Fuji at that proximity, Tezuka could smell the slight whiff of alcohol from his breath.

" So what if he is, eh Tezuka? So what if he is?" Fuji smiled then the grin slowly died at his lips.

Staring at the smile, he felt hatred for the boy seeping into his veins; there was nothing else he could change about the attitude.

Tezuka released Fuji shirt and walked away.

But it was then; between that small fragment of a second when he was ambling out did Tezuka realize a hand at his shoulders. He felt himself being pushed from behind, and a small skinny hand pinned him to the wall. He stared up, only to meet that pair of blue cerulean eyes.

And it was only at that proximity did Tezuka notice the intensity of Fuji's eyes. They were terrifying. Staring into that sea of darkness, Tezuka flinched and tried to move away.

But Fuji's voice stopped him- dead in his tracks.

"Why did you run away?" Fuji's voice seeped of poison and something else.

Tezuka stared back into the abyss of blue; he could only mouth a " huh" as his voice had failed him in the most crucial of times.

" That night when you were following me, why did you run away in the end?!" Fuji shouted; his voice held rage beyond the depths of anger. His eyes were terrifying, but his voice then was something beyond measurable range.

Tezuka could not reply. His answer was hanging dead at the tip of his lips. He did not know why, he did not know how to answer. He could hardly remove the shock from Fuji's question.

" Why?" Fuji repeated, this time calmer, but still deadly, his eyes fixated on Tezuka.

Then he paused, and let the silence drown the remainder of the few seconds as he glanced to his own feet. He shuffled them meekly, his eyes shut once more behind the safety of those lids.

" Were you…"Fuji muttered, his voice fading into the darkness of the night "… afraid?"

And a distant clunk of an empty bottle resounded in the darkness of the night. Tezuka noticed then, beyond the shadows of the rumbling cars that even the cicadas were silent.

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Disclaimer: Thou shalt not steal

I've done it, written the second chapter. School's taking a toll on me, i'm tired and exhausted so i hope that the story won't seem too weird or incoherent. I tend to write unrelated things when i'm dazed, it's a habit and i do it, unconsiously. So i hope that you liked it and would comment, after all, i won't live without them.

Thanks for the comments on the previous chapter, i am not sure if i am to write my reply here but i'll do so anyway:

THANKS FOR ALL THE REVIEWS! I'm not sure if this is AU as i'm unsure of how to differenciate. And i can't tell you why his eyes are terrifying or anything else as it would not be coherent to do so.

Is that too short? I don't think thats how one does it but that the only way i know how to. So do forgive me.

Life is short, We need our sleep. So thanks FOR READING !:D


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